Skyping with Hugo

Last tuesday Valentina and I tried to speak with Hugo about politics and the health care system in the United States. I wrote "tried" because Hugo was extremely tired and had some difficulty in following our conversation. I tried to ask why he was so tired but it seemed he didn't want to tell exactly what he did. He only told us he went to bed at four in the morning! Therefore the flow of the conversation was very slow and this was also due to the fact that Hugo had no questions to ask us. So we tried to talk a little bit about the health care system in the States. I told him that some time ago I saw Michael Moore's movie called "Sicko" and that I was really impressed by the story of a man who cut two of his fingers while he was woodworking. When he went to the hospital he had to decide which finger he wanted to be put back in its place because his medical insurance couldn't pay for both. Hugo told us that if you don't have a good job or if you are a student and you have a car crash or something like that, it could be a very serious problem. They would take you to the hospital but if you are not insured they could either let you die or decide to operate you. In this case, you may have to pay debts for the rest of your life.
Then we had to stop our conversation because there were some technical problems with our headphones and we let Hugo go back to sleep, since he had no classes that day.
I think that the topic of health care could be a good subject matter for our final project, since it has been a very debated issue in the States, especially during this period of political campaign.

Skype again!

Last tuesday I had an interesting discussion talking to Ann on our third Skype meeting (actually it was the second with Ann). She immediately started asking questions about Berlusconi, because they had a class about politics in Italy with their Italian teacher. Her first qustion was about what we think of him and how we feel towards his political program. I told her that he's not one of my favourites and I explained to her what his political campaign is about. She asked me how come he's one of the richest people in Europe (I think he's the third) and Alessia and I told her that he's good at business and he built up his own commercial empire through industries, television and soccer.

Then I asked her if she had seen the Obama girl video and what she thought of it. She hadn't seen it yet but she knew what it was about and asked us if there is something like that here in Italy. She said that Obama during his campaign is visiting lots of cities including Dickinson but I didn't understand if he went there in person or sent some representatives. We all agree about the importance of these kind of actions that brings politicians to common people and which contribute to create a better image of a candidate. The hope is that all this will turn someday in pragmatic facts and that their beutiful words aren't only virtual promises. We also asked her if she preferes Obama or Hillary. She said she hopes that Obama will win the elections because she thinks that he's a very "down to the ground" person. She also hopes that someday it will be possible also for a women to be elected but she doesn't think Hillary is the right person to be head of state. She said that lots of people are going to vote for her just because she's a woman and not because they really believe in her political program. Then Alessia asked her what she would do if she was elected president. The first thing she said was the universal health care for everybody but we couldn't going much deeper in the matter because the time for our conversation was up. I think this will be an interesting starting point for the next skype meeting.

Image from United States Senate